Quick Links - Poets.org

follow poets.org

Search form

The Academy of American Poets is the largest membership-based nonprofit organization fostering an appreciation for contemporary poetry and supporting American poets. For over three generations, the Academy has connected millions of people to great poetry through programs such as National Poetry Month, the largest literary celebration in the world; Poets.org, the Academy’s popular website; American Poets, a biannual literary journal; and an annual series of poetry readings and special events. Since its founding, the Academy has awarded more money to poets than any other organization.

poetic forms

occasions

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, on June 16, 1959, Robert Fitterman spent his childhood in Creve Coeur, Missouri. He received his BA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his MA from Temple University.

About his writing practice, Fitterman says, "Experimental poetry has a long shelf life. Even if the community is small, the conversation could be vital to the future of the art...Beyond the numbers, what's crucial is to articulate, foster, and engage in a conversation that speaks to the dialogues of the day (and there may be many)."

About Fitterman's poems, Bruce Andrews wrote: "They valorize themselves not so much by vernacular sampling (which is nothing new, even if it still scandalizes the clerisy) as by the rich and risky attentiveness of their prosodic choices. Relation is it."

Currently, he teaches writing and poetry at New York University and at the Bard College, Milton Avery School of Graduate Studies, and lives in New York City.

National Laureate

Alabama
Eagle and egret, woodcock and teal, all birds
gathering to affirm the last gasp of sunset.
Alaska
Maybe I should stay in bed
all day long and read a book
or listen to the news on the radio
but truthfully, I am not meant for that.
Arkansas
Then, as we talked, my personage subdued,
And I became, as Petit jean, a ghost,
California
I can stand here all day and tell you how much
I honor, admire, how brave you are.
Connecticut
Dark grays and fainter
Grays of near fields and far hills
Motionless, his mind
Playing silently
Over and over with his
Worry beads of words.
Delaware
On her dresser is one of those old glass bottles
of Jergen's Lotion with the black label, a little round
bottle of Mum deodorant, a white plastic tray
with Avon necklaces and earrings, pennies, paper clips,
and a large black coat button. I appear to be very
interested in these objects.
Florida
We learn from our animals, if we're smart.
They know how to wait. They know how to run
To catch up. Much of their life is spent at windows.
Georgia
Loaded on beer and whiskey, we ride
to the dump in carloads
to turn our headlights across the wasted field,
Idaho
I imagined him wading the shallows of a mountain stream—
the breeze still cold off the higher snow fields,
the fish smell of fresh water, the pitched hum of insects
waking to the sun.
Illinois
Fact is, each breath becomes bone
becomes dust
Indiana
Hill Thoughts,
Midnight Flight
Iowa
The afternoons go by, one by one.
My old friend, who shone like a tropic sun
Amid the poets of our day, too soon
Grown wan and thin as the late May moon,
Kansas
In river country flint nodules rest
among limestone sea bottoms, unexplained,
glassy among the porous tangles of shells
Kentucky
I see her in a photograph I found,
unsmiling in a drop-waist dress. No telling
how the roaring twenties roared through here.
Louisiana
i search but i can not find out
the streets of my ancestors
nor any relative to receive me
Maine
When I was a child and angels argued slamming doors,
I lolled, feet up the couch, head on the floor
Maryland
Before I leave, almost without noticing,
before I cross the road and head toward
what I have intentionally postponed—
Mississippi
Behind the Ridge
The Seeking Spirit
Cry Life
Montana
Gray cloud like a sweater pulled over the heart of the moon.
Nebraska
Windmill. Stretch even the
Fingertips against sand-coated hills.
You can get there from here,
Sir.
Nevada
Treat your Mommy nice
and take her to Las Vegas—
she'll think you're swell.
New Hampshire
The city was brick and stone in the time
before glass and steel. In those days
the city was streets of women.
New York
Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye.
North Carolina
The only clouds
forming are crow clouds,
the only shade, oaks
bound together in a tangle of oak
North Dakota
Most poets are rooted in the natural world,
spokespersons for the inarticulate in nature.
Oklahoma
under her cool skin
the feet dipped in formaldehyde
to prevent sweating
a river runs.
Oregon
And you pretty much gotta trust Her,
even if that means twiddling your thumbs
while she makes Her way through Her medley—
Rhode Island
The dark barge works the length of braziers
humped like monks awaiting sacrifice;
South Carolina
Seeds of hope are waiting
in the sacred soil beneath our feet
and in the light and in the shadows,
spinning below the hemlocks.
Tennessee
for eighty some odd years
He rose with the rising sun
And many mornings got up at dark
For so much work was to be done.
Texas
Her skirt clings to her the way fog clings to a flower.
Her legs are curled up, her sleeping face soft like a saint.
Driving for hours a man thinks about how things are measured,
about how coffee always tastes better in small towns.
Utah
Neither of us can guess if they'll hurry
dusk along, those clouds that have loitered
all afternoon over the rooftops. From our window...
Vermont
When you come back to me
it will be crow time
and flycatcher time,
with rising spirals of gnats
between the apple trees.
Virginia
When the last cloud leaves
nothing behind—no
history, no trace of error, no
basilica to shelter a man—
Washington
oblivious to the fact
that anyone might be watching,
that he might be teaching us all
how to live
West Virginia
Then, that recognition would
reward me for all I'd undergone,
my bravery of thought, my refusal
of dishonest love, and my goodwill
Wisconsin
Although distance does not
matter, it's a long way
into the flat pine forest
Wyoming
the work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Note: Not every U.S. state has a designated poet laureate

by this poet

To look and to listen requires the work of attention, selection, reappropriation, a way of making one's own film, one’s own text, one's own installation out of what the artist has presented. —Jacques Rancière

related poems

At night the states
I forget them or I wish I was there
in that one under the
Stars. It smells like June in this night
so sweet like air.
I may have decided that the
States are not that tired
Or I have thought so. I have
thought that.
At night the states
And the world not that tired